Barnes and Noble has unveiled a new Nook that uses a thin LED lighting film to …

A version of the Nook SimpleTouch is now equipped with front-lighting, Barnes & Noble announced Thursday. The new Nook SimpleTouch costs $40 more than the standard version with the light being the only difference; other features remain the same.

Built-in lighting has become the next logical step for e-ink readers. On April 6, TechCrunch found that Amazon had acquired patents for a front-lighting design in 2010. The company has offered Kindle cases with built in lighting for some time, but on this count Barnes & Noble has beaten Amazon to this feature.

The new Nook benefits from "Flex Lighting," a thin LED lighting film that sits like a skin on top of the e-ink display. The lighting relies on one or two LEDs, according to The E-Book Reader, and its brightness is adjustable. The standard battery life estimate for a Nook SimpleTouch is two months of one hour of reading per day. Barnes & Noble states the device will still last "over one month" if the reader is using the lighting.

Hilariously, Barnes & Noble is marketing the Nook SimpleTouch toward couples beleaguered by a specific situation—where one person wants to read later than the other ("End bedtime reading debate—when you want to read & your partner wants to sleep," reads the features list). We expect the Nook SimpleTouch will find a much wider audience, though the $139 price tag is a bit steep compared to the $99 regular Nook SimpleTouch. We'd point out that it's also only $60 less than the Kindle Fire; which reader you'd choose depends on your dedication to e-ink. The device is available for pre-orders today and will ship May 1.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

What's with the stupid time estimates? "2 months of reading 1 hour per day"? Why not just say "60 hours of reading time with the light on, or X hours of reading time with the light off"?

It would be so nice if companies would start providing simple estimates for things, in standard quantities.

Well, it makes sense for a press release, though I'd also want your number in a spec somewhere as well. Basically,the average user is an idiot, and has no idea how much they read or how to do simple division, so estimates are good for them.

Same way Apple did the "holds X songs" for years, which for most people was a useful estimate.

This might entice me to upgrade, though. I already have a tablet, so the Kindle Fire (and Nook Color) don't interest me. I like e-ink, I prefer it for reading, but having the ability for frontlit e-ink without an external accessory would be spiffy. Most of my reading is in lit rooms, so I'd not use it often, but it's nice as a backup.

If you have to buy the Amazon light/case for the Kindle, it's $59, so this isn't so bad. It's also built in which is much nicer than the stick up light for the Kindle. Hopefully, it will also more evenly illuminate the screen.

The 40% premium over the standard version for some lights is a little steep, but I do find this interesting. I'd have to see how uniform the lighting was in person (and just as importantly, how far it can be dimmed), but the lack of built-in illumination for bedtime reading has definitely put me off e-ink readers in the past.

Also, is there a battery life discrepancy? The standard version is quoted at 2 months at 1 hr/day use with the wireless turned off. The Glow states 2 months without the lighting at 0.5 hr/day.

Also, people need to understand that when the battery life gets long enough, the scale of interest changes. For a device that might actually run out in an outing, life in hours is the measure of interest. I need to know if my music player or media player will last long enough for my daily commute, or a long flight.

But an e-ink reader has a battery life such that this is not really a concern. Nobody's taking a long enough flight to run out a charged Nook (or it is at least rare). Also, the usage pattern is different...people are generally only going to read an hour or two a day. So the measure of interest is no longer "hours of battery life," (to answer the question of "will it last the entire trip?") but rather "how often will you have to plug it in?"

For an average user, this becomes like once a month.

I don't know if I'm explaining this well. *shrug*

I guess I'm just saying that it's not entirely the fact that people are idiots and can't do division. Though this does play a part.

A sheet of thin plastic and two LEDs for $40. Really?!? I would have expected them to have this introduced as the Touch2 and phased out the original reader. I guess we'll have to wait for the Kindle price war for them to bring the price down.

I'm thinking of doing just that. The Nook Simple Touch is a rootable Android device. Not sure whether I'm forking over an extra $40 for a light. I will have to evaluate it in person before making that determination.

I have an e-ink Kindle and a Fire, and both work well for reading books. At $139 for this it does make getting a Fire with apps, Amazon Prime videos and cloud player music at $199 seem like a better choice. Or a $79 Kindle and a $10 book light.

What's with the stupid time estimates? "2 months of reading 1 hour per day"? Why not just say "60 hours of reading time with the light on, or X hours of reading time with the light off"?

It would be so nice if companies would start providing simple estimates for things, in standard quantities.

Even "60 hours of reading" is pretty meaningless with eInk displays. They only use power when turning pages (refreshing pixels), so it depends on how fast you read and/or how complex the pages are (and potentially even what font is used, full refresh vs. partial, etc.). I suppose 60 hours of reading would be better than the X months assuming Y hours per day, but any time frame they put on it is pretty much BS. The most accurate would be to just give the number of refresh cycles given an average text density - then at least you could figure out (maybe) how many books you can read on a charge. Of course having a constant power drain like a light would just screw those numbers up, too...

What's with the stupid time estimates? "2 months of reading 1 hour per day"? Why not just say "60 hours of reading time with the light on, or X hours of reading time with the light off"?

It would be so nice if companies would start providing simple estimates for things, in standard quantities.

I think it mostly reflects the fact it uses almost no battery while not in use. It gets a bit stupid when moving to the light, leave the light on and it'll be dead in a bit over a day, but there's less of an on/off issue, unlike laptops/tablets where they see significant battery drain even while not in use, so long as it's awake and doing something. An ereader you don't really need to worry about sleeping or turning off or on, just stop hitting buttons.

If you have to buy the Amazon light/case for the Kindle, it's $59, so this isn't so bad. It's also built in which is much nicer than the stick up light for the Kindle. Hopefully, it will also more evenly illuminate the screen.

To be fair though, the Kindle light/case also protects the screen and all that stuff. It would be better to compare the Kindle plus a light/case to this thing plus a case to carry it in.

Boskone wrote:

I'd buy one...if I could load a Kindle app on it. :|

I don't know that a Kindle app would even work as well as a real Kindle. The Kindle app on my Asus Transformer isn't as cool as what my Fire came with, for example.

I'd buy this... if it was made by Amazon. I'm almost in the market for one too, since my 3g/keyboard's light/case thing is sort of out of commission, and I'm not about to buy another one for most of the price of a Kindle. Hurry up and copy them, Amazon.

Personally, I don't think there's anything hilarious about marketing it as a way to read when your partner is trying to sleep. My biggest beef with my standard e-ink Nook is that I need a light source to use it. When my wife is trying to sleep and I want to read, it's not a great situation. I don't want to read on my iPad because of the eye strain it causes, so having this feature will be amazing for me-- Buying one as soon as I can!!

I'm with momentarydogma, that very situation happens to my wife and I all the time. I can turn the light down real low on my 7" acer tablet and it's ok, but this would be awesome. It's the biggest thing I have against e-ink readers, and for the very reason they're using to sell it. I was about to buy my wife a tablet, but this would suit her a whole lot better.

Hilarious* is watching her read in bed using a laptop lying on it's side. And yes, I've now pointed out which side has the fan vent that she was blocking by doing that!

I love my Nook Color for reading at night, as I've been reading with LCD PDA and tablets for probably 15 years now. I'd consider this, if only for the battery life. The Nook Color seems to last roughly 10 hours. Being able to have 60 hours of use minimum, would be pretty amazing.

I have a Nook Simple Touch and I love it. The Wife has been eyeing it for a while though and dropped some hints that she'd like one too. I was considering getting her the Kindle equivalent of the Simple Touch just so we'd have access to both markets (although I already technically have that with my Transformer Prime). However, this new glow-worm technology is making me reconsider that plan.

edit: I'll probably end up waiting until they're in stores so I can actually see it in action rather than the simulated online videos.

Wow, the first instance of an eInk reader with built-in lighting (one of eInk's major weaknesses compared to LCD) appears, and all people can do is complain about the cost and battery life. Amazing.

What's so hard to understand? You think $40 bucks extra for a what a $5 reading light could accomplish is going to impress people? lol

Given the Amazon price points for the Kindle w/ ads and the Fire the new Nook is priced too high to draw normal consumers. I expect it to drop in price by mid summer once they milk the early adopters. Plus we know Amazon has one of these in the works which will end up at or below the $100 ballpark.

I just bought a Nook Simple Touch a few weeks ago mainly because reading on my Nook Tablet or Thinkpad Tablet causes eye strain after about an hour or so. I love my new nook. I swear they introduced this just so they could get me to buy another nook. I will have to wait and see how this looks instores and of course for the price to drop a bit. If it launched at $129 I'd be all over it, but at $139 plus taxt, it's not something I want run out and buy right this very second.

That being said this is a device I would love to own. I am heavily invested in the B&N ecosystem and I love that they beat Amazon to the punch on this. As other have commented though, I hihgly expect Amazon to follow suit in the coming months.

Wow, the first instance of an eInk reader with built-in lighting (one of eInk's major weaknesses compared to LCD) appears, and all people can do is complain about the cost and battery life. Amazing.

I'm in the Kindle ecosystem myself but I can't wait to see some reviews on how well this actually works.

I'm in the Kindle ecosystem as well but looking to replace my Kindle (I'm getting tired of the constantly breaking screens and other issues), even at a $40 premium I'd definitely buy this new Nook. I'll need to see it in person first in case the lighting is really uneven or something, but other than that I was already settled on getting a nook.

What's with the stupid time estimates? "2 months of reading 1 hour per day"? Why not just say "60 hours of reading time with the light on, or X hours of reading time with the light off"?

It would be so nice if companies would start providing simple estimates for things, in standard quantities.

Yupe. Why not just say 60 hours as you put it. It got me thinking, then I realized this "2 months of 1 hour per day" is not quite the same as 60 hours straight run. We know that it takes extra battery juicy when each time the reader power on and power off than just keep the reader on idle. My guess is this reader could well last more than 60 hours when idle. I could be wrong though.